Book Clubs Column by Julie Hale

ONLY THE LONELYRussell Banks’ latest novel, Lost Memory of Skin, has an unexpected protagonist. The Kid, a convicted sex offender, camps out under a causeway in Florida. Laws stipulate that he must stay away from places where children congregate. A victim of his own instincts, young and a bit naïve, the Kid leads a shiftless existence with other homeless men. His life takes an unexpected...

The shrinking of the world

Globalization, according to Charles C. Mann, began in December of 1492, when Christopher Columbus established what he hoped would be a permanent settlement in what is now the Dominican Republic. (It lasted for five years.) Thus began what historian Alfred W. Crosby called the Columbian Exchange. Following Crosby’s lead, noted scientific journalist Mann, using the latest scholarship and...